Most of the time, those who use animals in experiments justify that use by pointing to alleged benefits to human and animal health and the supposed necessity of using animals to obtain those benefits.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
The problem with experiments has always been that human beings make the decisions on whether or not the animals have benefitted from the treatment.
Scientists should not do animal testing if there is any alternative, but subject to that, I would support it on grounds of the medical benefits.
Animals, or at least those who are conscious and capable of suffering or enjoying their lives, are not things for us to use in whatever way we find convenient.
If one of the arguments against eating meat is to do with cruelty and animal intelligence, then lab meat avoids that. There's also the environmental argument for it.
Animal-rights advocates remind us of this admonition: The ways in which people treat animals will be reflected in how people relate to one another.
For at the same time many people seem eager to extend the circle of our moral consideration to animals, in our factory farms and laboratories we are inflicting more suffering on more animals than at any time in history.
We live longer and healthier lives than ever before. Animal research has improved the treatment of infections, helped with immunisation, improved cancer treatment and had a big impact on managing heart disease, brain disorders, arthritis and transplantation.
There is increasing social concern about our use of nonhumans for experiments, food, clothing and entertainment. This concern about animals reflects both our own moral development as a civilization and our recognition that the differences between humans and animals are, for the most part, differences of degree and not of kind.
We do not need to eat animals, wear animals, or use animals for entertainment purposes, and our only defense of these uses is our pleasure, amusement, and convenience.
It is an incontrovertible fact that if we want to make progress in basic areas of medicine and biology, we are going to have to use animals.